One of my dream destinations in Japan is a small town in Tottori prefecture. I've always wanted to go and recently, I was able to finally tick this off my bucket list.
The town I wanted to go is Hokuei Town, also called as the Conan Town. Hello, Detective Conan? Yes, that's the Conan of this Conan Town. The town isn't known as Conan Town because this is where Conan lives, but because this is the hometown of Gosho Aoyama, the author of the popular detective series manga. This town is a popular pilgrimage for Conan fans like me, so I was so happy my friends and I were able to come here for a day.
There are lots of statues in this town, and you had to walk to find them all. When we arrived, this statue of Detective Conan welcomed us pointing us to the direction where we should be going.
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We spotted the Detective Boys! They're very near the station. We grabbed a photo with Ayumi-chan but Mitsuhiko-kun and Genta-kun were also there. Haibara-san was also there but I grabbed a photo with her later.
We noticed people were so busy so we figured maybe there's a stamp rally going on. It turned out not to be a stamp rally but an investigation that you need to do around the town and when you solve the case, you'll be rewarded. Because we were so competitive and because we also plan to walk around the town, we hurriedly go to the starting point of the game.
Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory
It was a 20-minute walk from the station to the starting point, which is the Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory. We had to pay the entrance fee of 700 yen (~4.71 USD) to the factory and inside, we approached the booth to join the investigation case. After the instructions were provided, we can immediately start.
The investigation case is called Detective Kogoro Mori's Investigation Log (毛利小五郎の探索記). This is the autumn event in the town. You can read more about the event in the official page (only in Japanese).
The first location is in the manga factory so we took our time admiring the works of the author. They even replicated the desk of the author here in the factory.
Did you know some characters that appeared in the series are inspiration from real life? They showed it here in an interactive way. I only knew 2 til then so the others were really new to me.
Different manga covers were displayed here, and the manga has different versions in different countries. In some countries, it's Case Closed, in some Detective Conan and in Japan, of course it's 名探偵コナン (read as meitantei conan).
We came across the replica of Kogoro Mori's desk and in it was the clue to the first problem we had to solve.
Before we headed up, Shuichi Akai's standee was here! I hope they made a statue of him.
We went to the 2nd floor and saw Kaito Kid's statue there. Kyaah! He's just so adorable!
There's an area where we could play different games, so @chillquill and @revlat35 were having fun with it. I had to play the quiz game to test my Detective Conan knowledge. I scored great! 😅
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Of course, I didn't miss the chance to take photos of my favorites Ran and Shinichi when I saw them. The opening theme of the anime was also shown here, I couldn't hear the sound though.
We checked out some souvenirs but nothing of interest came to my liking. I got the medallions engraved with my name though. It was so nice as a keyholder.
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Outside, Professor Agasa's beetle car is parked with him driving inside. I honestly didn't notice it was a statue because the car looked so real!
There were some statues of Kaito Kid here too so we took photos of this popular thief character before leaving.
Walk To The Next Stop
We found Ran and Sonoko as we were walking to the next stop. They're so cute and feminine!
A few blocks away was the 眠りの小五郎 (Sleeping Kogoro) and Conan was behind him talking in Kogoro's voice. This is the usual scene when a case is about to be solved.
A small Shinichi Kudo is also seen opening a door. He looks so cool with that pose! Kyaaah!
Beika Shopping Street
We arrived at Conan's House in Beika Shopping Street. In here, there's the Poirot Coffee, where Amuro is working part time. We were pressed with time so as much as I would like to take my time sipping afternoon drinks, we had to act fast. There's a doorbell here where we could hear the voices of the characters but we weren't able to press the doorbell. No shopping or a photo booth either. 😫
We found several statues here including Kazuha and Heiji's. These two were in looking at the map, dressed for travel, on Heiji's bike. They look so cute together! Another favorite couple 😌
After taking a photo with Conan, we found the problem #2 so we immediately had to look for clues to solve it.
More Walks Around Town
As we're heading to the next destination, we passed by more statues, mostly of Conan. Some were in the bridge and apparently they named the bridge as Great Conan Bridge.
Among them, I liked the statue of Conan eating a watermelon. Apparently, this town is also famous for its watermelons called 大栄スイカ (read as Daiei Suika). The name Daiei is the old name of Hokuei town so daiei suika is daiei watermelon.
We reached the next destination where we found the Black Organization members' statues and Shinichi turned to Conan nearby. These antagonists were holding the pill, the APTX 4869, that they used to make Shinichi die but he apparently turned into a young boy.
We found the problem and moved on right away to the next destination which is a good 5 minutes walk if we hurry.
Our next destination was the library of the town where we found Shinichi leaning on the wall. Shinichi is my favorite character so I'm actually fan girling in this photo. The problem we needed to solve was just displayed on the side so we immediately solved it. If only we had more time, we would explore the library because I was also curious. Next time then.
What's left are 2 more destinations. The last one being at the train station where the end point also is found. When we arrived in the town earlier, I already checked out the question problem and we already found the clue to solving it so that left us with just one more destination. It's a bit far from the train station and we only had 30 more minutes left before our train arrives. We already know the answer to the investigation case but we don't know which sticker should we stick on the remaining letter. We decided to go despite the time and promised ourselves we should walk faster.
Luckily we were able to spot the question problem right away! The clue is also just nearby. We found Ran here, which was surprising because she's a bit far from the rest of the characters.
While walking, we were putting on the sticker on our investigation log paper. It was so funny how we walked fast but it paid off eventually because we reached the train station 10 minutes before 4pm leaving us ample time to rest while waiting for our train.
The investigation log was so fun! We were able to walk around the town. Too bad, we were not able to spend more time on other establishments but next time, I hope to come back and explore the town on a deeper level. Thanks to my teammates @chillquill and @revlat35, we were able to solve the case and enjoy the reward! We got a clear file folder! Yay!
I had to cover the answer because the event is still ongoing the clear file folder we got as reward (https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/wittyzell/23tvifssaBJasUQPknu8ALNdqHbGnuNDkytJ4CE8TJtnJ3QjLU131NHAefagXs9z4VYHv.jpg)
The investigation log case runs from September 20 to October 26 and it has a time period from 9:30~17:00. To join, go to the starting point which is the reception desk at the Manga Factory and the goal is in the Conan station. There's an english translation of the case so people who can't read Japanese can join. 😉 Don't worry, it's easy!
Signed manhole cover? (https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/wittyzell/23wCEE7zKKyRhWzs39UZTBEQHC6oivSw52Wdi9RvvJZBJbhW756LFgAYXktKduyR4TirM.jpeg)
Overall, it was a enjoyable afternoon at Conan Town. Plus, we got to exercise a lot here too by walking around the town. The investigation case just made it more fun!
Happy Hive Power Up Day! Here's me joining!
Hive PUD (https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/wittyzell/Eo6BArbdGQyhRPdWMjakhrXEQ7j8DYnEtpviVfzXCfqd6DhRu1KsS4VrjFLtyQSQwRf.png)
Thanks for reading! See you around! じゃあ、またね！
With love, wittyzell--rc.gif (https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/wittyzell/23w2cauWCurtABZsc9KjtxdzaN3qaJb4HfdMqVVtRk4MkovgUyRyTngSuvH4ufRZC2UWp.gif)
All photos are taken using my phone unless stated otherwise.